Meshfree Methods (MA 5324)

Meshfree methods are a comparatively new approach for the (numerical) interpolation or approximation of some unknown function. In contrast to more traditional techniques - like finite differences, finite elements, spectral methods or wavelets - they do not require a mesh of the underlying computational domain (where the unknown function lives) to be generated first. These methods are very flexible with respect to the geometry of the domain, work in higher space dimensions and their basic implementation is strikingly simple.

This lecture will cover the basics of meshfree methods with an emphasis on approximation by radial basis functions. The lecture
will be intertwined with programming exercises in MATLAB.